Etymology and pronunciation The name
Penutian is based on the words meaning "two" in the
Wintuan,
Maiduan, and
Yokutsan languages (where it is pronounced something like ) and the
Utian languages (where it is pronounced something like ). Although perhaps originally intended to be pronounced , which is indicated in some dictionaries, the term is pronounced by most if not all linguists.
Initial concept of five core families The original Penutian hypothesis, offered in 1913 by
Roland B. Dixon and
Alfred L. Kroeber, was based on similarities observed between five California language families: •
Maiduan languages •
Miwok •
Costanoan languages •
Wintuan languages •
Yokutsan languages That original proposal has since been called alternately
Core Penutian,
California Penutian, or the
Penutian Kernel. In 1919 the same two authors published their linguistic evidence for the proposal. The grouping, like many of Dixon & Kroeber's other phylum proposals, was based mostly on shared typological characteristics and not the standard methods used to determine genetic relationships. Starting from this early date, the Penutian hypothesis was controversial. Prior to the 1913 Penutian proposal of Dixon and Kroeber,
Albert S. Gatschet had grouped Miwokan and Costanoan into a
Mutsun group (1877). That grouping, now termed
Utian, was later conclusively demonstrated by
Catherine Callaghan. In 1903 Dixon & Kroeber noted a "positive relationship" among Costanoan, Maidu, Wintun, and Yokuts within a "Central or Maidu Type", from which they excluded Miwokan (their Moquelumnan). In 1910 Kroeber finally recognized the close relationship between the
Miwokan and
Costanoan languages.
Sapir's expansion In 1916
Edward Sapir expanded Dixon and Kroeber's California Penutian family with a sister stock,
Oregon Penutian, which included the Coosan languages and also the
isolates Siuslaw and Takelma: •
Oregon Penutian •
Coosan languages •
Siuslaw •
Takelma Later Sapir and
Leo Frachtenberg added the
Kalapuyan and the
Chinookan languages and then later the
Alsean and
Tsimshianic families, culminating in Sapir's four-branch classification (Sapir 1921a:60): •
California Penutian grouping •
Maiduan (Maidu) •
Utian (Miwok–Costanoan) •
Wintuan (Wintu) •
Yokutsan (Yokuts) •
Oregon Penutian grouping •
Coosan (Coos) •
Siuslaw •
Takelma •
Kalapuyan (Kalapuya) •
Alsean (Yakonan) •
Chinookan family (Chinook) •
Tsimshianic family (Tsimshian) By the time Sapir's 1929
Encyclopædia Britannica article was published, he had added two more branches: •
Plateau Penutian family •
Klamath–Modoc (Lutuami) • Waiilatpuan •
Cayuse •
Molala •
Sahaptian (Sahaptin) •
Mexican Penutian grouping •
Mixe–Zoque, spoken in populations in
Oaxaca,
Chiapas,
Tabasco and
Veracruz •
Huave, a
language isolate spoken in four villages on the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec resulting in a six-branch family: •
Penutian • California Penutian • Oregon Penutian • Chinookan • Tsimshianic • Plateau Penutian • Mexican Penutian (Sapir's full 1929 classification scheme including the Penutian proposal can be seen here: Classification of indigenous languages of the Americas#Sapir (1929): Encyclopædia Britannica.)
Further expansions Other linguists have suggested other languages be included within the Penutian grouping: • Macro-Penutian hypothesis (
Benjamin Whorf) Or have produced hypotheses of relationships between Penutian and other large-scale families: •
Amerind hypothesis (
Joseph Greenberg) Note: Some linguists have proposed a relationship between Penutian and the
Zuni language. This link, proposed by Stanley Newman, is now generally rejected, and may have even been intended as a hoax by Newman.
Mid-twentieth century doubts Scholars in the mid-twentieth century became concerned that similarities among the proposed Penutian language families may be the result of borrowing that occurred among neighboring peoples, not of a shared proto-language in the distant past.
Mary Haas states the following regarding this borrowing: Even where genetic relationship is clearly indicated ... the evidence of diffusion of traits from neighboring tribes, related or not, is seen on every hand. This makes the task of determining the validity of the various alleged
Hokan languages and the various alleged Penutian languages all the more difficult ... [and] point[s] up once again that diffusional studies are just as important for prehistory as genetic studies and what is even more in need of emphasis, it points up the desirability of pursuing diffusional studies along with genetic studies. This is nowhere more necessary than in the case of the Hokan and Penutian languages wherever they may be found, but particularly in California where they may very well have existed side by side for many millennia.(Haas 1976:359) Despite the concern of Haas and others, the Consensus Classification produced at a 1964 conference in
Bloomington, Indiana, retained all of Sapir's groups for North America north of Mexico within the Penutian Phylum. The opposite approach was taken following a 1976 conference at
Oswego, New York, when Campbell and Mithun dismissed the Penutian phylum as undemonstrated in their resulting classification of North American language families.
Recent hypotheses Consensus was reached at a 1994 workshop on Comparative Penutian at the
University of Oregon that the families within the proposed phylum's California, Oregon, Plateau, and Chinookan clusters would eventually be shown to be genetically related. Subsequently,
Marie-Lucie Tarpent reassessed
Tsimshianic, a geographically isolated family in northern British Columbia, and concluded that its affiliation within Penutian is also probable. Earlier groupings, such as California Penutian and
Takelma–Kalapuyan ("Takelman") are no longer accepted as valid nodes by many Penutian researchers. However, Plateau Penutian, Coast Oregon Penutian, and
Yok-Utian (comprising the
Utian and
Yokutsan languages) are increasingly supported.
Scott DeLancey suggests the following relationships within and among language families typically assigned to the Penutian phylum: •
Penutian •
Maritime Penutian •
Tsimshian •
Chinook •
Coast Oregon Penutian •
Alsea •
Siuslaw •
Coos •
Inland Penutian •
Yok-Utian (from the
Great Basin) •
Utian •
Yokuts •
Maidu (from the Great Basin or Oregon) •
Plateau Penutian •
Sahaptian •
Molala •
Klamath The
Wintuan languages,
Takelma, and
Kalapuya, absent from this list, continue to be considered Penutian languages by most scholars familiar with the subject, often in an Oregonian branch, though Takelma and Kalapuya are no longer considered to define a branch of Penutian. A lexicostatistical classification and list of probable Penutian cognates has also been proposed by Zhivlov (2014). ==Evidence for the Penutian hypothesis==